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A BRIEF HISTORY 



New England Historical & Genealogical Register, 

BEING THE PREFACE TO THE SEVENTEENTH VOLUME 
OF THAT WORK. 

BY JOHN WARD DEAN. 



Less than nineteen years ago, the New England Historic-Genealo- 
gical Society was organized; and for seventeen years of its existence 
the Register has been regularly issued under its direction. The con- 
tribution that it has thus made to the historical and genealogical 
literature of our country is a just cause of pride. The seventeen 
closely printed volumes now before the public have preserved for 
future use many a valuable historical document that fire, vermin or 
the papermill had otherwise destroyed. But the preservation of the 
documents printed in its pages is only a small part of the service it 
has rendered to the cause of history. The taste for antiquarian pur- 
suits that it has disseminated in the community has led to the pre- 
servation of a much larger number of documents which remain un- 
published in private or public collections. The genealogical taste, 
too, that it has fostered among us has produced equally valuable re- 
sults. The number of persons that it has directly or indirectly led 
to collect the scattered fragments of their ancestral annals would 
probably astonish most of us could it be known. The stimulus it 
has furnished to these inquiries was opportune. Aged people 
in whose memories were treasured the facts which explain records 
and supply omissions during the middle and close of the last 
century — usually found the most diflBcult period for the New 
England genealogist — were fast passing away. Many of the fami- 
lies whose record is now quite full, could not have been connected 
with the early settlers had research been delayed half a century 



longer, or even to the present time. Those who would like to know 
how much has been done, since the formation of our society, in col- 
lecting and publishing the genealogies of American families are 
advised to examine the Handbook of American Genealogy by Mr. 
William H. Whitmore, a member of our present publishing committee. 
In addition to the published genealogies, there are, at this time, a 
very large number of family histories, the result in a great measure 
of the taste inspired by our society and its publications, which are 
wholly or partially prepared, but which have not yet appeared in 
print. Some of these it will be the work of the Register to bring to 
light and thus permanently preserve, while others no doubt will 
appear as separate volumes. 

It will be observed that the Register was started soon after the 
foi-raation of the society. Indeed, one of the three original members 
now surviving, Mr. "William H. Montague, informs us that the pub- 
lication of a magazine was one of the objects contemplated by its 
founders. But in the first "Circular" of the society, printed Jan. 
28, 1845, just three weeks after its organization by the choice of 
officers — no allusion to a periodical is found; though a "Genea- 
logical and Biographical Dictionary or History of all New Eng- 
land Families" is there mentioned as in contemplation. The first 
action towards establishing a periodical that the records show was 
in the following autumn. On the 4th of November, 1845, on motion 
of Mr. Thornton, the recording secretary, it was voted : " That a 
committee of three be appointed to prepare a circular or prospectus 
for the publication of a journal under the auspices of the society, 
devoted to the printing of ancient documents, wills, genealogical 
and biographical sketches, and historical and antiquarian matter 
generally — and to report at the next meeting." The committee 
then appointed, consisted of the Rev. Samuel H. Riddel and Messrs. 
Samuel G. Brake and J. Wingate Thornton. Additions to it were 
made at subsequent meetings, among those added being the presi- 
dent of the society, Mr. Charles Ewer. At the next meeting, De. 
cember 3d, the Rev. Mr. Riddel, as chairman, made a written report 
which is now on file. The committee recommended the size and 
price which were finally adopted, namely, 96 octavo pages, quarterly, 
at two dollars a year; but the information then collected was not 
sufficient to venture an opinion whether subscribers enough could 
be procured to warrant commencing the publication. The committee 
was directed to continue its investigations. Later in the month 
arrangements were made with the Rev. David Reed, a member of the 






society, — then and now the publisher of the Christian Register, a 
religious newspaper of the Unitarian denomination, — who agreed to 
issue a prospectus that the society might ascertain what encourage- 
ment, would be extended to the work. His prospectus for " The 
Genealogical and Antiquarian Register, is now before us. It will be 
noticed that the words, New England, formed no part of the proposed 
title. The document is not dated, but " Circular Number Two " of 
the society informs us that it was issued " on the anniversary of the 
landing of the Pilgrims." This prospectus differs but little from that 
printed on the cover of the Register for January, 1847. The titles, 
as will be observed, are different. In the former prospectus, sub- 
scription papers are to be returned to " David Reed, Christian Register 
office, Boston;" in the latter to " Samuel G. Drake, Publisher, 56 Corn- 
hill, Boston." Mr. Drake's prospectus, also, contains a few addi- 
tions, and there are other slight variations. 

The same day that this prospectus is said to have been put forth, 
December 22, 1845, a delegation from the society consisting of tlie 
Rev. Samuel H. Riddel and Messrs. Samuel G. Drake, Solomon Lin- 
coln and Andrew H. Ward, attended, at Plymouth, the celebration of 
the 225th anniversary of the Pilgrim Landing. The subject of the 
proposed publication was brought to the attention of some of those 
present; and one of the delegates, we are informed, attempted to 
procure subscribers, but with small success. 

On the ITth of January, 1846, another report was made to the 
society, and is preserved. The committee thought that a publica- 
tion like that proposed, "if edited with the requisite labor and 
ability, and if issued by an enterprising publisher on his own respou. 
sibility" would " eventually secure an amount of patronage sufBcient 
to render it a safe and successful undertaking;" and that the society 
" would have it in its power to render no inconsiderable encourage- 
ment * * * ju ways not involving pecuniary responsibility." 
It seems tliat Rev. Mr. Reed soon relinquished the idea of publishing 
the periodical — of the success of whicli we learn he was never 
very sanguine, — for on the 4th of February, about six weeks after 
his prospectus was issued, the committee reported that "progress in 
relation to procuring an editor and publisher was for the present put 
off." During the year, however, " a considerable number of volun- 
teer subscribers" was obtained. 

On the 2d of December, 1846, a letter was read from the Rev. 
James D. Farnsworth of Boxboro', offering to edit the magazine, but 
no action appears to have been taken on the offer. About this time, 



or soon after, negotiations were commenced with the Rev. William 
Cogswell, D. D., of Gilmanton, N. H., as editor and Mr. Samuel G- 
Drake of Boston, as publisher. Rev. Dr, Cogswell was then editor and 
proprietor of the New Hampshire Repository, an ecclesiastical and anti- 
quarian quarterly, then in its second year, having been commenced 
October, 1845. It was supposed that by adding the subscription list of 
that work to the names that had already been obtained and that would 
be obtained for the new periodical, a liberal salary might be paid to 
an editor, and a suitable remuneration be realized by the publisher. 
Accordingly, on the 16th of December a contract was signed. Rev. 
Dr. Cogswell's salary was fixed at one thousand dollars. The 
January number was soon put to press, and was issued February 
5th, 1847. The result of the first year's experiment, we are informed, 
was a loss to the publisher. Very few of the subscribers to the 
Repository continued to patronize the Register, the character of the 
two works being different, while the price of the latter work was 
double that of the former. 

Mr. Drake finding by experience that the profits of the work were 
not suflScient to pay an editor an equivalent for his labor, took upon 
himself the editorial charge of the second volume. Two other 
members of the society edited portions of the third and fourth 
volume. With this exception, Mr. Drake edited and published the 
work to the close of the fifth volume.* 

Having it in contemplation to remove to New York the following 
spring, Mr. Drake, after completing the fifth volume, in October, 1851, 
surrendered the Register to the society. The Publishing committee 
then made arrangements with Mr. Thomas Prince, descended from 

* The following facts relating to the Register tcl&j interest its readers. The editors 
have been as follows : 1847, Rev. Dr. Cogswell; 1848, Mr. Drake ; 1849, Jan., Mr. 
Drake ; April, July and Oct., William Thaddeus Harris, A. M. ; 1850, Jan., Mr. Drake ; 
April, July and Oct., Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, M. D.; 1851, Mr. Drake; 1852, 
Jan. and April, Rev. Joseph B. Felt, LL. D. ; July, Hon. T. Farrar, A. M. ; Oct., 
William B. Trask ; 1S53, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, Mr. Drake; 1859, ISGO, W. B. Trask, Wm, 
H. Whitmore and John W. Dean; 1861, Mr. Drake; 1862, Jan., W. B. Trask; 
^/jn7, Rev. Elias Nason, A. M. ; July, Hon. Charles Hudson, A.M.; Oct., J. W. 
Dean ; 1863, J. W. Dean. 

The publishers have been ; vols, i to v, Mr. Drake ; vi, Thomas Prince; vn to x, 
Mr. Drake ; xi, Charles B. Richardson ; xii to xv. Mr. Drake, xvi and xvii, Joel 
Munsell. All of these are now living, and are members of our society. 

A list of the Publishing Committees will be found in vol. xvi, p. 289. 

The indices in vol. i were prepared by Rev. Dr. Cogswell. Mr. Drake prepared 
the indices of names in vols, n to iv, and the general indices in vols, ii to V, and vii 
to XII, inclusive. The other indices are by Mr Trask. 



the same family as the New England annalist and possessed like 
him of antiquarian tastes, to publish the sixth volume, the editors of 
which were to be chosen by the committee. The contemplated re- 
moval not having taken place, Mr. Drake was prevailed upon the 
next year to resume the publication which he continued, excepting 
one year, till the close of 1861. Since then Mr. Munsell of Albany, 
has been the publisher, the society furnishing an editor. Mr. Munsell 
in ofiFering to publish the work stated that he should not undertake 
the publication with the idea of deriving any profit from it', but 
rather as a contribution to a cause in which he felt a deep interest. 
The same feeling has influenced the editors who have gratuitously 
contributed their services. 

To Mr. Munsell we are certainly under great obligations. He 
stepped forward at a time of unusual discouragement and has carried 
the Register through a critical period of its existence. A still 
greater debt, however, is due to Mr. Drake. For a large part of the 
time that the Register has been published, he has borne the pecuniary 
responsibility. Of the sixty-eight numbers that have been issued, 
fifty-two have been published by him. The editorial labor has also 
fallen largely upon him. Of thirty-eight numbers, or more than half 
he work, he has been the editor; and on many of the numbers edited 
by others, especially the early ones, his literary labor has been con- 
siderable. To most of the numbers he has contributed articles. 
The present editor — having been a member of the publishing com- 
mittee for nine years, a longer period than any other person,* and 
having had considerable knowledge of the management of the 
Register before his connection with it — has had opportunities of 
learning something about the labor bestowed by Mr. Drake on the 
Register, and his pecuniary return for it; so that he can speak with 
some confidence on this point. 

Other members of the society, besides the publishers, have done 
much towards sustaining the work. Some have taken extra copies, 
some have assisted in increasing the subscription list, some have 
helped on the literary labor, and some have aided in other ways; yet 
it must be confessed that a large portion of them have not been 
active supporters of the work — perhaps from the fact that they 

* Next to liim are the late Mr. David Hamblen and Messrs. William B, Trask 
and William H. Whitmore — the last two still on the committee, who have each 
served six years; the Rev. William Jeuks, D. D., LL. D., who served five years ; and 
the Rev. Samuel H. Riddel, Mr. Frederic Kidder, the Hon. Timothy Farrar and the 
late Mr. Charles Ewer, four years each. 



6 

have never been aware that it needed their support; for we should 
be loth to believe that there is any considerable number of our 
members who feel indifferent towards anything that promotes the 
interest of the society or aids its objects. Though members are 
not required by the constitution to subscribe for the Register, yet we 
can certainly appeal to them with more propriety than to others for 
encouragement and assistance. A little effort on the part of each of 
them would have a wonderful effect on our future success. 

Many persons have expressed surprise that a periodical so well 
known and appreciated as this is, should have so small a subscription 
list. This, probably, is owing in a great measure to the nature of 
the work, which is adapted rather for reference than reading. As it 
may be found in public or private libraries, many who are interested 
in its contents manage to use it without owning it. We are in- 
formed that in some public libraries it is used more than any other 
periodical. Subscribers abroad have told us that many people visit 
them in the course of the year — not a few of them strangers — to 
consult the Register. The numbers of such persons which they men- 
tion have really astonished us. We have no doubt, from these and 
other facts, that if every person who has derived from a single 
volume of the Register, information that he would not part with for 
double its subscription price, had been a subscriber to it, the public 
would have had a better periodical, and he himself would have been 
able to derive more profit from its pages. 

The Register, however, has had its sunshine as well as its shade. 
If its subscription list has been small, that list has borne many 
names of eminence and worth ; and few periodicals have had firmer 
friends. A large proportion of those who have ceased to be sub- 
scribers, have only ceased to be such at death; while its losses by 
bad debts have been smaller than is usual with periodicals giving 
credit. 

We have referred to the influence that the Register has exercised 
upon historical studies. That it has been of great service in 
fostering a taste for such pursuits, — not only in New England, but 
in other parts of our country, we have ample evidence. Among the 
testimonials of its usefulness in this respect, may be cited that of 
the author of one of the most voluminous and best prepared local 
histories yet published in the United States, who, writing some 
years ago, remarks: "I have been a student of tlie Register * * 
ever since its first number; and to it, as much as anything, I owe 



the deep interest which I feel in historical and genealogical pur- 
suits." 

Another result that may fairly be set down to the credit of our 
society, is the establishment of the Historical Magazine — an offshoot 
from the Register — now in its seventh year. This monthly periodical, 
which was commenced in Boston, but was removed in 1858 to New 
York, has done and is now doing good service in the cause of anti- 
quarian and literary research. 

There is one characteristic of American genealogy, which the 
society and the Register have done much to encourage; namely, 
thoroughness. In other countries, too frequently, the pedigrees of a 
few familes only are preserved, and it is not attempted to make even 
these complete. With us it is different. Our genealogists endeavor 
to obtain full and precise records of their families. This of course 
makes the American collections of more service to the scientific in- 
quirer, than those of the old world. One of our New England writers 
thus remarks upon the result of such genealogical research and 
upon the influence of the Register: 

" When genealogy assumes, as it will, the broad and comprehen- 
sive range of inquiry which belongs to, and ought to be embraced 
in the study, it will assume the rank and dignity of a science, show- 
ing the laws of physical development and its relation to mind and 
morals, thus exhibiting the causes and principles of progress and 
decay in the family and nation. 

" In this view, the transactions of this society, and the kindred 
publications appearing under and attributable to its fostering influ- 
ence, will present to the scientific genealogist, avast field of observa- 
tion, from which he will systemize great facts and deduce general 
laws of the highest moment in the improvement and elevation of man, 
showing not only what his condition is, — to which the present scope 
of statistical inquiry is limited, — but its causes and remedies." 

Even among us, however, too little attention is paid to the collec- 
tion of facts that will be of service in a scientific point of view. 
What facts are most important, our readers may learn from a very 
suggestive essay on Philosophical Genealogy prefixed to the " Shattuck 
Memorial " by the first vice-president of our society, the late Lemuel 
Shattuck, Esq., whose reputation as a statist is well known. 

The important feature in all historical works is truth — correct- 
ness. We have aimed at this in conducting the Register. The 
utmost care, however, does not prevent mistakes, as Sigma has 
shown. " It may afford," says he, " some consolation to publishers 



8 

who in spite of all their vigilance and toil are reminded occasionally 
of corrigenda, to know that the famed antiquarian, Sir William Dug- 
dale, whose accuracy was a proverb, after having devoted thirty 
years to the preparation of his Baronage of England, sent the manu- 
script to Anthony Wood, the compiler of the Fasti and Athena Ox- 
oniensis, who devoted an entire vacation to a rigid scrutiny of the 
work, and returned it with sixteen folio sheets of corrections and 
still more of additions." 

We believe that the Register contains as few errors as any other 
publication in which names and figures are principal features. We 
find, however, more errors than we could wish for; and, undoubtedly, 
many others escape our eye. To those who will point out any which 
they may discover, we shall feel truly grateful. It is our wish to 
correct them as fast as they are brought to our notice. A periodi- 
cal has an advantage, in this respect, over other publications. 

The war has had its effect on the Register as it has upon all Ameri" 
can magazines. It has called readers and contributors from their usual 
pursuits to the camp and to other service in aid of their country. 
They are now making history instead of studying it. Feeling that 
all which is valuable in our institutions is at stake, we can not but 
hope that the lessons and memories of the past will be cherished in 
their hearts, and prove a stimulus to patriotic and heroic action. 

And now tendering our thanks to correspondents and others for 
their assistance during the past fifteen months, we would express a 
hope that the Register may continue to glean the fields of history 
and genealogy long after its present conductors are in their graves. 
The materials are abundant, and are constantly increasing. That our 
successors may find as ready and faithful friends as we have found, 
is also our sincere wish. 

Boston, Massachusetts, September 25, 1863. 









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